Friday, 25 May 2007

covers- THE STAROS REPORT 1996

Continuing the general thread of a story through these covers, I wrote on may 17 and 19 that I launched into self publishing in 1995 figuring I'd solve all the problems as I went along, there being far too many of them to think about all at once. One was: how do you put the logo on a color cover (I remember Jeff Smith saying when he started Bone he didn't know how to do that either). The solution to this one arrived when Mick Evans turned up and told me my design was crap. I had plenty of good looking covers and typeset pages when I was with other publishers, but now that I was soloing, perhaps I figured everybody would be happy to accept a hand-made look. From Bacchus no. 7 on, all my books would be properly designed by Mick Evans, with text pages nicely typeset, and from then on we sent our own negatives for the covers instead of just asking the printer to put the logo in approximately the right place in one of the four colours. I was even able to have photos on the backs of the trade paperbacks and some computer trickery now and then.The other big problem was what to do about storing extra copies Stateside for reorder activity. Chris Staros in Georgia had made enquiries about helping me out, obviously wondering how I was dealing with that. At the beginning there was a fellow in Brooklyn who was keeping boxes under his bed for me and sending out subscription copies, but after an issue per month for six months, with a couple hundred overprint on each, it was getting too complicated. Staros had a bigger plan to become a publisher, and handling my stock was his second step in that direction (Top Shelf Productions being the final destination, though not envisioned clearly at the time). He had been putting out a little annual book for a couple of years, The Staros Report, which contained a directory of addresses and numbers for publishers and agents and character listings of Love and Rockets other such useful info. Now he wanted to turn it into a proper magazine with a glossy cover, and interviews and articles. So we packaged the cover for the first of those. I did the art with the help of Pete Mullins and handed the rest of the job to Mick Evans. The result shows the big difference between what I was doing before and a new set of possiblities. Evans heads a design studio in Brisbane these days.

************HEY!! Today marks six months of daily blogging here at campbell.blogspot. I gave up my day job and took on this assignment on November 25 and haven't missed a day.***********

9 Comments:

Has it been six months already? Well, as I am stuck at home all week (save to teach in the afternoon) with baby, trying to do my own version of Eddie Campbell comics, with nothing to show for it yet, I thank you. Fate is one of my on line watercoolers, which those with day jobs enjoy in real life. I tryed forming my own art gang, but they eather are to lazy to go anywhere or they have those day jobs with coolers. I'll be back in a few days. I'm off to San Diego to visit me mum.

I saw it a while back and only said something because I found out they're playing at Koko in Camden next month. 'Ooh!' I said, and promptly told people about it without actually checking if there are any tickets left -- which there are't. Muppet.

Gosh. Thanks for the link to Beirut. Very nice. I even liked the photography--clever cuts with the real waves and faux cloth waves.

Been a long time since I've seen a horn-playing lead vocalist, too.

Six months. I'm amazed you are able to keep the daily blog interesting each day. That's why I stop by (when I'm not vacationing). I can always count on lots of neat stuff, and your blog triggers all kinds of old memories for me, for some reason.